I just checked the protocols: the PD made the difference, exactly like in the Juniors, with the PCS... I'm surprised Monko-Khaliavin received a negative GOE and level 2 for the step sequence, at the Trials it looked great, so they probably made a mistake in it. It looks like Zhiganshina-Gazsi have finally found a good balance: good in the technical score, as always, but they finally received a high PCS, and it's the first performance in competition of this program! By the end of the season they could easily score higher than 60!
J6 is Ulrike Karch, the German judge, and this probably explains why Z/G were one of the two couples to receive marks higher than 5.00! This is (obviously) sheer national bias!

This is quite a good score for the germans, even if we discount judge nr. 6.
Interestingly Chock /Bates and Zlobina / Sitnikov scored with more than 5 points less than in SLC or Minsk respectively. I am curious if they could hold off Monko /khaliavin in the FD, as the russians had the second highest PCS score in the SD.
Surprising for me that R/H have higher PCS than P/I who looked so polished ealy in the season.